Friends of China.

"Sri Lankan MPs have elected Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the country's new president, despite his unpopularity with the public." BBC. He was appointed prime minister by the former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who fled the country first to Maldives and then to Singapore, when protesters stormed his official residence on 9 July. BBC. Protesters also called for Wickremeshinghe, a close ally of the Rajapaksas, to resign and "last week burned down his private home and also stormed his prime ministerial office in Colombo in demonstrations against his leadership". Sri Lanka's economy is in a mess. In May it defaulted on a $7 billion foreign debt repayment, its inflation rate is over 50%, with food inflation at over 80%, and its foreign currency reserves are down to $50 million so that it is unable to buy fuel, food and medicines from abroad. NDTV. "As foreign investments dried out, India emerged as the top lender to Sri Lanka, with assistance worth $3.8 billion during the course of this financial crisis." News18. As president, Gotabaya enjoyed immunity from prosecution so he fled abroad before resigning his post. BBC. So, why would Wickremesinghe want to become president when the economy is in shambles, the vast majority of people don't want him and its talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout were inconclusive? CNBC. 1. Maybe because he desperately wants to be president, having run twice for president in 1999 and 2005 and lost both times. BBC. "He has been prime minister six times, but has never seen out a full term." 2. He is fearful of being involved in any criminal charges against the Rajapaksa family and will be immune from prosecution as president. 3. He wants to teach protesters a lesson for burning his house down. He has called them "fascists", declared a nationwide emergency, and trotted out the hoary old chestnut of restoring democracy. Firstpost. On 14 July, "the military establishment refused acting president Ranil Wickremeshinghe's directive to use force on the protesters." "The army said that it was unanimously maintained that the 'peaceful protests should not anyway be dealt with full force, but with minimum force as long as those protesters do not resort to violence or damage the public property'." HT. "One has to revisit the Latin American debt debacles decades ago to even conceptualize the loss in income that Sri Lanka will undergo in the next few years," wrote Rahul Jacob. "Creditor agreements will be complicated by Beijing's apparent rejection of the global convention of writing down loans when a borrower can't repay." Another country running up huge debts to China is 'Iron Brother Pakistan'. CGTN. "There are many developing countries, including Pakistan, which confront a similar predicament." Dawn. "Foreign exchange reserves are fast depleting. The country needs some urgent help for its external debt-servicing obligations that are projected to be $23 billion in 2022-23." India has not taken any loan from China. We just gave a gift of $72.9 billion to China in 2021-22 in trade deficit. BI. All friends of China. In different ways.